“Yes, I believe what I said was true,” Jones retorted.

“You believe everything you say is true, but it isn’t. Your beliefs do not make something true,” she said. “That is what we’re doing here. Just because you claim to think something is true does not make it true. It does not protect you. It is not allowed. You’re under oath. That means things need to be true when you say them. Don’t talk.”

For those of us who have spent years watching Jones lie, Gamble’s rebuke was so cathartic, it was almost poetic. But this is not just about his falsehoods. Jones’s entire discourse tactic is to load any debate or topic of conversation with so much noise that it renders speech almost impossible for anyone else. During his shows, Jones rambles endlessly on endless topics—be it vaccines or 9/11 conspiracy theories or stolen-election theories—citing news articles and dubious studies haphazardly and drawing false or tenuous connections between disparate events. In public, he drowns out everyone else on the street with the blare of his infamous bullhorn. As one of his former employees, Joshua Owens, told me in 2019, Jones’s goal is “to flood any topic with confusion and doubt so no one can grab onto anything.”

This is why attempting to earnestly interview Jones is a fool’s errand. In any semi-normal setting, Jones will unleash his growly baritone on any subject, spinning his own tired narratives and making sure that nobody else can get a word in edgewise. As soon as he feels cornered, he’ll start yelling even louder. He creates a spectacle that’s difficult to look away from. Jones’s ravings, even when odious, can offer perverse entertainment to his haters, even if just to dunk on him. Because he appears so much like a caricature and because he is so outlandish and volatile, there is a desire, even among those who find him dangerous and vile, to try to understand the man and his true beliefs. Most profiles of Alex Jones have attempted to answer the same question that I, a person who has profiled Jones, get asked constantly: Does he really believe what he says?